EDSC 5714 - Teaching with Your Mouth Closed: Basic POGIL Strategies for STEM Teachers

Course Description

POGIL is a pedagogy based on research indicating that a) teaching by telling does not work for most students, b) students who are part of an interactive community are more likely to be successful, and c) knowledge is personal; students enjoy themselves more and develop greater ownership over the material when they are given an opportunity to construct their own understanding. An inquiry-based team environment energizes students and provides instructors with instant and constant feedback about what their students understand and misunderstand. Students quickly pick up the message that logical thinking and teamwork are prized above simply getting "the correct answer". This emphasizes that learning is not a solitary task of memorizing information, but an interactive process of refining one's understanding and developing one's skills. Participants will be immersed in a process-oriented guided-inquiry learning (POGIL) environment as they explore the basic characteristics of POGIL classroom, and then they will apply new skills by facilitating or co-facilitating one section of a POGIL activity, offering and receiving peer feedback on the facilitation, and reflecting on how the new facilitation skills will be used in the classroom.